14 THE PEACH 



sap, conveying the pabulum of life suitable to its 

 taste and physical constitution. 



Dr. Tilton, of Wilmington, Delaware, in his cor- 

 respondence with Judge Peters, Nov. 6, 1807, wrote 

 as follows, " the disease and early death of our Peach 

 trees is a fertile source of observation, and that in 

 all the diseases of the Peach I have examined, it 

 appears to me that insects do the mischief. The 

 curling of the leaf, the boring of the bark, the de- 

 struction of the root, the premature ripening of the 

 fruit, all proceed from insects, and even the sickly 

 appearance of the tree called yellows is attributed 

 to insects by a late writer in our newspaper ! In 

 my jaunt in Maryland, I was attentive to the sub- 

 ject of your letter. I*found that peach trees were 

 generally long lived, healthy and bore well. In 

 Edward Lloyd's garden, I observed some of the trees 

 fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter and perfectly 

 healthy." 



From these publications it seems that the exper- 

 iments by Peters, and others, in the application of 

 supposed cures and remedies were applied empiri- 

 cally, and opinions were expressed based only on 

 slight indications, and hence errors and failures were 

 the result. These gentlemen and others connected 

 with their learned society, standing then as they did 

 the living fingerposts, directing the course in which 

 public sentiment and public action should travel, 

 rather discouraged than otherwise, perseverance of 

 investigation into the causes of the troubles in 



